Question for anyone familiar with Philly Sheriff Sales??

[Nancy L.]

Someone in my neighborhood (Germantown section of Philly) is concerned about a vacant/deteriorated property with a large tax balance. While this person would not want to buy it personally, there's been a lot of activity here lately and someone else very well might. Anyone familiar with Sheriff Sales here? My questions are:

-Is the opening bid necessarily equal to the amount of taxes owed? Can people bid lower than the opening bid, if they are the only interested party? In this case it sounds like the tax balance may actually be higher than the value of the property.

-What is the process to bring a property to Sheriff Sale?

-Is there a way you know of for a concerned neighbor, who would not necessarily wish to bid themselves, to bring attention to the issue and encourage the City to expedite their normal Sheriff Sale process? (As opposed to actually "forcing" the sale)?

And any other tips/thoughts would be appreciated as well! Thanks for reading!